Shrub Doze

It’s not a real shrub but an interval

composed of tended beds of recognition. 

The dream is sweet as a bird sets down

its weight, near nothing to our waking cares. 

Its meter’s leafy edges blown, breezy, 

but never flagging, never there, honed as

a syllable unlets the mind, heedful.

These brittle terms recur and accumulate.

The tapping swells thought’s maculate gaze.

A Depiction

Time measured tastes

like dried fruit from

plastic wrap, a little

cardboard to stiffen,

some funk and crystal 

crumbled at the edges.

A doorway lit, the light

like white resin 

though transparent in its

cleanliness, facility and

tact, viewed from a chair

in which I’m lingering—

the agglutinating surfaces,

the sweet flesh torn—

even delaying a bit.